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Although the Catholic Church has not taken an official position on the issue, Indiana Catholic Conference executive director, Glenn Tebbe, remains a critic of the bill, insisting that flushing human remains down the sewer is "disrespectful and offensive".

Two things are worth remembering:

"My personal beliefs say this is offensive" is not a valid reason to restrict the choices of other people under state law. If it were, we'd have to outlaw cremation, body burial, and cadaver donation. Some portion of the American public finds all of these "offensive."

One wonders if the Indiana Catholic Conference finds the "traditional" method of embalming more "respectful." Millions of Americans, including Catholics, have their abdomens suctioned and the contents poured down the drain every year along with a healthy dose of formaldehyde.

"When people die, they cannot be replaced. They leave holes that cannot be filled, for it is the fate - the genetic and neural fate - of every human being to be a unique individual, to find his own path, to live his own life, to die his own death."

An architecture student in Norway has proposed skyscraper burial as a possible solution to the problem of the country's shrinking burial space. This is not a totally new idea, as this Gizmodo article illustrates. Other cultures have been practicing vertical burial throughout history.

Norwegians, along with many other Europeans, have been recycling their graves for some time, to conserve space. But the practice of wrapping bodies in plastic, introduced in the first part of the 20th century, has prevented bodies from completely decomposing in time for the next generation of corpse burial, leading to the current space limitations.

Pondering death can help you appreciate strange art, according to the European Journal of Social Psychology. Research led by Verena Graupmann of DePaul University suggests that those reflecting on their own mortality may find increased meaning in the works of surreal artists. Read more at Pacific Standard - PSMAG.COM